Source Notes:
Given by him in his book, "Harmonics, Book IV," (December 27,
1571 OS). Juan Revilla (Internet 8/2000) quotes a chart for 1:00 PM LAT,
with an MC of 29 Cap 30 and ASC 28 Taurus, "drawn by Kepler himself
on page 6 of "Johannes Kepler Selbstzeugnisse" by Franz Hammer
et als, Stuttgart, 1971." Apparently Kepler had rectified his own
chart from an approximate time of 1:00 PM and by using a pre-natal epoch
system, Trutina Hermetis or something similar, had arrived at 2:37 PM LMT.
Biography:
German author, mathematician, scientist, astronomer, court astrologer
and teacher. Known as "the father of modern astronomy," he
discovered the three laws of planetary motion which paved the way a half
century later for Newton's laws of universal gravitation. The leading
astronomical theorist for over 400 years, he was regarded as having
"one foot in medieval mysticism and one foot in the scientific
method."
The son of peasants, Kepler's prodigious ability placed him as a
student in the University of Tubingen, where he was strongly influenced by
Copernican teachings. Following graduation, he was professor of
mathematics at the University at Graz where he wrote "Mysterium
Cosmographicum" in 1596, a treatise which initiated a correspondence
with Danish Astronomer Tycho Brahe, who subsequently employed Kepler as
his assistant at his observatory near Prague, 1600. It was there Kepler
discovered his laws of planetary motion governing elliptical orbits, which
were motivated by his desire to prove the Pythagorean Music of the
Spheres.
Following Brahe's untimely death the following year, Kepler succeeded
him as Court Mathematician to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, King of
Bohemia and Hungary. After publishing Brahe's calculations on the orbit of
Mars in 1609, he became Mathematician to the States of Upper Austria and
moved to Linz in 1612, where he wrote "De Cometis and Harmonic Mundi."
Kepler's mathematical genius allowed him to see mathematical formulas
of planetary orbit hidden in the rough pre-telescope observational data of
Tycho Brahe. Thus he became the first scientist to derive precise,
universal laws from empirical data. He also invented log tables, an
essential tool for calculating planetary positions.
As a professor and an astronomer Kepler held grave doubts about
astrology, but practice and experience persuaded him to reconsider the
celestial science. "A most unfailing experience (as far as can be
expected in nature) of the excitement of sublunary (that is, human)
natures by the conjunctions and aspects of the planets has instructed and
compelled my unwilling belief."
He repeatedly penned letters to friends to "separate the gems from
the slag," and in later years, accepted the position of Court
Astrologer to Albrecht Wallenstein, Bohemian general and imperial
commander of armies in the Thirty Years War. Despite his rank as a Court
Astrologer, Kepler lived on the edge of poverty and died in this condition
on 11/15/1630 in Regensburg, Germany.
In the early 1800's, Catherine II of Russia purchased his manuscripts
and placed in the observatory at Pulkovo near St. Petersburg, where they
allegedly remained. While a member of academia was casually rummaging
through an obscure archive at the University of California at Santa Cruz
in March 1999, he found a letter "written in the hand of Kepler, from
the collection of Kepler manuscripts in Pulkova" illustrating and
delineating a horoscope, and was later verified to be authentic.
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